Saturday, January 21, 2012

Sikander striving to make New Delhi Fair at par with international fairs

Jumbo Editorial Team

The Director of the National Book Trust (NBT), India, M A Sikander, having taken over this position recently, has vowed to make the upcoming 20th New Delhi World Book Fair 2012 at par the with international fairs besides making it a better and a bigger fair than its earlier editions.

“We wish to raise the bar of what we have been doing for so many years. We are planning everything in advance. We have even made arrangements for the travel desk wherein visitors from other cities and countries can avail discounts at hotels as well as get local transport conveniently at better rates,” Sikander remarked in an interview.

The 20th edition of biennial New Delhi World book Fair is scheduled to be held at the famous Pragati Maidan from February 25 to March 4.

“We are planning a better signage system. To make it easier for the visitors, we are naming the halls according to the books displayed in that particular hall. And all these would be properly marked for easy navigation. Also, there would be an exact record of visitors at the show as there would be a barcode entry for all,” the NBT Director revealed.

“As a bonus, we are trying to have at least one international event where foreign delegates or embassies would be participating. For example, we are planning to have one activity with Iran, with four translated books from NBT. Besides, we are also planning an event on regional languages,” he added.

“Taking forward the trend of offering theme-based international rights exhibition, the fair, this time will have a right exhibition on Indian cinema, celebrating 100 years of Indian cinema. For this, we have already received around 250 titles for display. There would be huge publicity, visuals, screening of films, children related activities, etc to supplement it,” Sikander disclosed.

“In fact, the book fair activity is being treated as the daughter’s wedding at NBT. We all are together working to make it the best New Delhi Book Fair so far,” he concluded.